


Swimming Into The Idea Of Your Scene

by sickly _sweet (infectedsense)



Category: Saturday Night Live RPF
Genre: First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Slow Build, UST, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 06:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2140800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infectedsense/pseuds/sickly%20_sweet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He thinks that so much about his relationship with Andy is characterised by the words ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’.</p>
<p>OR</p>
<p>Four times Seth wanted to kiss Andy, and one time he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swimming Into The Idea Of Your Scene

**Author's Note:**

> 2010 repost from Livejournal sickly_sweet. Here are my original notes:
> 
> "Inspired by [everything you see here](http://sickly-sweet.livejournal.com/598828.html), plus some other stuff. This began life as a rough 'five times' fic, which kind of explains the format. Timeline is loose, essentially it spans the whole time that Andy has been on SNL. Background information is equally loose, girlfriends don't exist. This was written out of sequence over the course of about a month with huge gaps in between, so apologies for inconsistencies. I tried to tidy it up but in the end I kind of like it messy. Last but not least, first time writing this pairing, first time writing Seth Meyers. I hope I pulled it off <3
> 
> OH, and the title is taken from a lovely Jimmy Eat World song called 'Evidence' =)"

There’s an easy kind of grace about the kid, Seth thinks, the first time he really meets him. He looks younger than he is, all big brown eyes and that unruly mop of hair. He should be clumsy, tripping over his own feet, but somehow he seems to move more fluidly than everybody else does in spite of his proportions, like he’s a perfect fit inside his skin. His grin is a mile wide when he shakes Seth’s hand, the enthusiasm genuine, which is a welcome change in and of itself. Everything about Andy is like a breath of fresh air, but every word that he says drags Seth’s eyes down to his mouth, a little too big for his face with generous lips and too-white teeth, and he thinks to himself, _don’t_.

*~*~*

“So you just wear the same suit to all of these things?”

Andy wrinkles his nose. “ _What_?”

“This is at least the fifth award show I’ve been to with you, and it’s the same suit every time.”

He uses his sanctimonious voice. “Actually, I happen to own more than one grey suit, Seth.”

“Why?”

Andy sighs. “We’re seriously talking about my wardrobe right now. This is a new low for dudes everywhere.”

They pause on the red carpet as the photographers blind them momentarily, well-rehearsed smiles on their faces. Then Seth continues as they walk inside.

“All I’m saying is, why don’t you mix it up a little? Try out a new colour once in a while. There’s a whole world of tailoring out there.”

“You don’t think the grey suits me?”

Seth looks him over as if he hasn’t long since memorised the curves. “Honestly?”

“No. Lie to me.”

“You look fantastic.”

“Real nice, man, thank you. Now I’m gonna be worrying about how I look all night.”

Disdainfully, “No you won’t.”

A grin. “You’re right.” Then, seriously, “I’ve just never felt comfortable in this stuff. That’s basically why I do what I do, so I don’t have to wear a suit to work. But it’s a total scam because you have to wear them all the time for award shows and premieres and photo shoots.”

Seth shrugs. “You don’t _have_ to. I mean, it’s _expected_ , but...”

Andy snorts. “The invites would dry up pretty fast if I was showing up in Converse and jeans.” They’re drifting towards the bar on instinct. “I guess I can live with it. Just don’t expect me to put any thought into it.”

“Well, it’s not like you put any thought into anything else.”

“Really making me feel good tonight, buddy.”

“It’s a pleasure.”

“So what are we drinking, Coors?”

“Sure.”

“Gotta love an open bar.”

“It’s the only reason ninety percent of these people are here.”

As Andy threads through the crowd, Seth is suddenly struck by the awkwardness of his walk. Now that he’s paying attention, it’s so obvious how unnatural Andy in a suit really is. All of the ease that he’s used to seeing in the swing of his limbs has frozen into stiff movements. It’s only the hair that proves the regular Andy is still in there. That, at least, never changes, and Seth is willing to bet this is why he’ll never cut or style those curls.

The beer isn’t cold enough but it’s free, and they’re checking the list to find their allocated seats, Andy’s eyes scanning with intense concentration behind his glasses, Seth’s eyes instead on Andy. When his fingers splay against the greyness of the suit, the small of Andy’s back hiding somewhere beneath the layers, he feels him relax by degrees too small to be visible in his posture but definitely there nonetheless.

“For the record, you wear a suit incredibly well. And grey is your colour.”

Andy’s smile aims for insincerity but doesn’t make it, his eyes still scanning the list but sparkling a little brighter all the same. “I’m glad we shared this moment, Seth.” And despite the richly sarcastic tone it’s not that difficult to take the words at face value, his hand still against Andy’s back, the lightest touch just enough to feel the warmth he radiates, so Seth does.

*~*~*

He gets to watch. Since he took on the job of head writer and his acting role shrank accordingly, he spends most of each show backstage, looking at the monitors. He only has to be ready for Weekend Update, and that’s a no costume required job. Unless you count a suit as a costume, which Seth doesn’t but Andy does.

The weekly show stays interesting for Seth because it’s inconstant; there is an ebb and flow to it that differs each week. Players come and go with each season, and on a smaller scale their screen time varies from episode to episode. The sets might be where the lights and cameras are focussed, but the wings are just as alive with activity. There’s an electricity that fills the shadowy spaces between each set, those stretches where the inner workings show through in wooden struts and sandbags and lighting rigs, cue cards and runners and Styrofoam containers of coffee, headsets and make up brushes and everybody silent but nobody still. Sometimes Amy will stand with him watching, maybe one of the others, but mostly everyone rushes around Seth like the current of a stream around an outcrop of rock, busy in preparation for their next scene. For Seth, by the time the cameras start rolling, most of his job is done. As a writer, it’s now his time to stand back and see how many of his jokes hit the mark and how many bomb. To an outsider it might seem like an easier ride than the acting, but in a way it’s harder. He has no control now, no tricks to push the jokes across. It’s his lines, or at least lines that he had some part in approving, in somebody else’s mouth. It’s up to the performers to make them fly, and if they can’t, well, Seth can only watch.

Tonight it could be anything that causes Seth to glance in the direction that he does, but if he’s honest with himself it feels like intuition, the inexplicable way he always seems to know when Andy is within eyeshot. It’s a week where Andy is more of a support than a lead, appearing in only two sketches. All around actors and cameras and sound techs are moving, moving, moving, but Andy is another pocket of stillness in the gloom now, an island squatting against the back wall, hidden from the audience by the living room set in front of him but not hidden from Seth. Not quite. Seth realises that a Digital Short is about to air. The audience claps as the title screen is shown, then the video is rolling and even from twenty feet away the helplessness is fever-bright in Andy’s eyes. Unmistakable because it’s achingly familiar.

It’s more fascinating than watching the sketches themselves has ever been for Seth. Reading everything in the hunch of Andy’s shoulders, the downward tilt of his chin. Eyes wide and flashing from behind the thicket of his hair as the first gag finds home with a generous sprinkling of laughter. He looks like a child who has just handed over a painstakingly crayoned picture for his parents’ approval, and it’s nothing like the Andy coming alive on the monitors in loud braying tones and exaggerated gestures. Seth watches Andy’s hands twisting and fidgeting compulsively and tries to square this picture with the Andy who told him comedy is something he does to make himself laugh, and if other people laugh too it’s a bonus, but it’s not why he does it. Their opinions don’t _matter_. He can’t reconcile the memory of those words with the man he’s seeing now because they don’t reconcile. Only one of them is true, and it’s far easier to lie with words than with actions.

It’s a three minute clip; Seth is vividly aware of each second passing, can almost hear them ticking down. Andy looks so small, so ridiculously vulnerable crouching there in the shadows, everything in him seeming to reach out towards the laughter and applause, desperate to drink it in. Seth is struck by the dichotomy between the Andy he is seeing and the one the public are seeing right now on the screen. In every obvious way it’s the screen Andy who is in the spotlight, performing. But that Andy is bulletproof. The Andy behind the scenery, _his_ Andy, Seth thinks with a strong clench of possession, is the one who will fall apart if this doesn’t go right. The Andy on the screen is being broadcast live but he’s a relic of the past. His performance was in the can hours ago.

Seth realises that he is exaggerating the significance of this moment almost to the point of absurdity. The worst that will realistically happen is the sketch will fall flat. There will be other sketches to fill the void, Andy will still be around next week and the week after that. He will remain Andy Samberg. Nothing will be broken about him. Seth knows the man better than that, and he’s a little embarrassed by his over-analysis of every tiny thing, the profundity he had coloured in, watching Andy. After all, he knows the feeling, the anticipation that seems to hang in the gut like being suspended at the top of a roller coaster, waiting for that audience reaction that will make or break the scene.

But still, the way Andy’s teeth are sunk into his lower lip, the barely-there sigh he lets out when the sketch is over and met with hearty applause, that feels more real than anything Seth has seen of the man so far.

Andy glances up and finds Seth with his eyes and a tiny smile tugs one side of his mouth upwards in one of those total heart-stopping moments that Seth has always felt like a man of his intellect shouldn’t admit to experiencing, but his heart and his intellect have never been able to agree on much and his heart does skip a beat regardless of the impossibility of it. Then Andy is pushing himself to his feet and movement returns to Seth’s world, he drops over the edge of the rollercoaster and rides it to the bottom in a sudden rush that makes his fingertips tingle as his blood remembers how to move.

Andy is almost back to his usual self by the time he reaches Seth ten paces later, just a lingering air of relief dancing at the edges of his smile. Seth realises he has to say something, the situation demands it. The best he can come up with is “Good job, man.” It feels weak but Andy takes it all the same.

“Thanks, Seth,” is the reply, then his arms are around Seth’s shoulders and pulling him forward to thump against his chest as he loses his balance, falling into a hug that envelops him with warmth and the smell of Andy’s shampoo. There’s only just time to blink and then it’s over, Andy standing back with a sweet smile on his face, hands jammed deep enough into his jean pockets that Seth is now sure he imagined the hug, nobody could move that quickly. He returns Andy’s smile because it would be impossible not to.

“I’ll see you afterwards,” Seth says, feeling an awkwardness in the moment that is probably one-sided. Andy nods.

“You bet.”

Then he’s disappearing into the shadows and all of the sound jumps back into the air to rejoin the movement; laughter and footsteps. Seth watches Andy walking. It’s all he can really do, is watch.

*~*~*

“I brought bagels,” Seth says as he walks through the door, tossing a brown paper bag that Andy catches easily as he glances up and grins at the sound of Seth’s voice.

“Awesome. Coffee?”

“Later.”

Andy pouts as he unwraps his lunch. One of his legs is hooked over the arm of the sofa that he’s sprawled upon in the small backstage room, his pose easy and relaxed. “I can’t eat a bagel without coffee.”

Seth sighs, sitting beside Andy in an altogether more dignified manner. “So get off your ass and make some.”

Andy tears off a hunk of bagel almost too big for his mouth to close around, cream cheese smudging across his lower lip. He tries to talk as he chews and Seth rolls his eyes. “But you make the best coffee,” he manages, finally swallowing the mouthful and lunging forward for another.

Seth starts to unwrap his own lunch, feeling as though watching Andy eat should be putting him off the thought of food, but in reality not deterred at all. There is still a dab of cream cheese on Andy’s lip and it should be disgusting, but isn’t. He thinks that so much about his relationship with Andy is characterised by the words ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’. That there are fundamental rules that Andy simply refuses to follow, unknowingly but categorically, and Seth follows in turn. Like the way that he shouldn’t want to lick the smears from Andy’s mouth, push his tongue past the half-chewed mess of food to get deeper inside that place, chase the taste all the way down. Definitely shouldn’t want to do that.

Seth realises that Andy is watching him, and he takes a small, deliberate bite of his lunch, trying not to equate the textures against his teeth with the man beside him. Andy’s eyes hold on him for a second, slid sideways in their sockets, he can feel it as he tries not to look. He’s not up to the task of trying to read what’s held in the brownness there.

“What’s so special about the way I make coffee?” Seth asks, breaking the silence that had in reality been brief, maybe three seconds, but had felt long enough that he’d expected Andy to have forgotten his last words, to have lost the thread of the conversation all the same. But Andy is single-minded.

“I don’t know, but it’s like a million times better than when I make it. Seriously, go get me a coffee.”

Seth’s mouth quirks into a smile, his bagel hovering a few inches away. “What’s the magic word?”

Andy huffs out a sigh. “I’m not going to beg, Seth. Do it or don’t.”

“I just don’t understand how I can possibly make you a coffee better than you could make yourself.” Seth is enjoying himself now, baiting Andy just a little, drawing out the idle banter. “I mean, you’re the one who knows how you like it. How much sugar to add, how much milk. How can anyone else do that better?”

Andy shrugs, swallowing the last bite of his lunch and crumpling the paper bag into a ball. “I don’t know. You just do. Maybe just because you’re, like, way better at everything than anybody else is. Maybe you’re Superman.”

There’s a laugh in Seth’s voice now as he turns to look at Andy. “I’m Superman because I make good coffee?”

Andy’s eyes are sparkling. “Well, you can be the Superman of hot beverages.”

“That’s a pretty crappy super power.”

“What if you could make awesome sandwiches as well?”

“Oh yeah, _then_ the world would be my oyster.”

Andy pitches his paper bag ball at the waste paper basket, misses, then settles back into the sofa, stretching his arms back behind his head, legs splaying even further apart. His tongue slips out to catch the last traces of his lunch, leaving his lips shining, and it takes almost everything within Seth not to swallow hard at this. His fingers twitch against the paper wrapping of his lunch and it brings his focus back to the neglected bagel in his hands, one tiny bite missing but otherwise perfectly intact. Regretfully he turns away from Andy and commences eating.

“I didn’t mean you’re only good at making coffee,” Andy says when he’s almost done with it. His voice is rich with post-lunch sleepiness, words a low-pitched drawl. “You’re just good at everything. It makes sense that your coffee is the best as well.”

“I don’t think I’m good at _everything_ ,” Seth responds. “I’ve never tried to climb Mount Everest but I doubt I’d be good at that.”

Andy bats him on the shoulder weakly. “You know what I mean. Everything you do here. You’re way funnier and more talented than the rest of us.”

“Well that’s just because you’re a bunch of idiots,” Seth grins. Andy ignores the comment.

“When we were writing ‘Hot Rod’ and we were stuck on the Parnell lines, you came up with like fifty ideas in two hours, and they were all funnier than anything we had. That’s crazy-talented.”

“This is an incredibly long-winded way of persuading me to make you a coffee, Andy.”

Andy laughs, knocking knees with Seth. “You still haven’t.”

“I never said I was going to.”

“You will. As soon as you get sick of me complaining.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Well do it soon, okay? Recess is over and we have lines to learn.”

“Recess? What are you, in grade school?”

“Come _on_ , Seth,” Andy whines. “I need caffeine to learn stuff.”

“Don’t pretend you’re actually going to learn your lines before Saturday night, Andy. You’ll just read them off of the cue cards like always.”

Andy socks him harder this time. “Asshole. Just because you get to sit behind your stupid desk for ten lousy minutes a show. Do you even remember what it’s like to do the live sketches?”

“Will you just make yourself a coffee already? Jesus, Andy.”

“But I want _your_ coffee!” he cries, hoisting himself up on the couch. “I can’t make it taste that good, Seth! I just throw the stuff in the cup and hope for the best.”

“Well maybe if you put a little more effort into it...”

“Yeah but that’s not me, Seth. That’s you.” His voice has dropped back to a normal volume and one side of his mouth lifts in a smile. “You’re good at the details, getting stuff perfect. You can make a cup of coffee taste the same every single time. It’s never too weak or too sweet or whatever.”

Seth doesn’t really know what to say. Andy seems weirdly serious about this, like the coffee is a metaphor for something else entirely. After a beat, Andy carries on. “With me it’s all guesswork. I can never remember exactly how I made the coffee last time. But I picture you being really...methodical,” he says. His eyes settle on the wall opposite and take on a slightly faraway look as he talks. “I think you take the cups down and line them up on the counter first. Then you fill up the kettle. You only put in just as much water as you need. While it’s boiling you take out the coffee, sugar, milk. Measure out exactly the right amount of coffee. I like mine strong, so you put in two spoons. Then sugar. Three in mine, one in yours.”

Seth is spellbound as Andy talks. He wonders why he’s put as much thought into this idea as he clearly has, but on another level he doesn’t want to know. It’s enough just realising that he has. “By then the kettle is just about boiled, so you top up my cup first, because it has more sugar and coffee that need to dissolve. You stir mine first, too. Then you put in the milk. Some people put the milk in first, but you don’t. And most people put in too much or not enough, but you don’t do that either. And that’s why I think you make the best coffee. Because you commit to it, like you commit to everything that you do.”

Andy’s eyes snap back to Seth like they’d never left, all of their usual sharpness evident, and Seth blinks.

“Wow. You really do spend a lot of time thinking about...coffee.”

It’s a thin smile he gets in return, but an almost predatory glint in the eyes that makes Seth’s palms start to sweat and his throat feel tighter. “Yeah. I guess I do.”

Making the coffee just seems like the right thing to do in the end.

*~*~*

The timing couldn’t be worse, Seth thinks, even as he stalks across the set and into the wings, hands fisted by his sides. It’s the memory of two minutes ago, Andy’s eyes burning into his until it didn’t feel like acting, not any more. The heat of their hands lacing together, a promise in the smile that shouldn’t have been there and all this in front of an audience, hint of danger. And now, backstage, Andy jumps out like a flash of colour in an old movie, red and white like a target. Seth keeps moving forward, knowing that he has ten, maybe twenty seconds at the outside to do this before Andy is due back on stage for the next skit. It’s a dangerous move, a stupid risk, ranking in the top five boldest things Seth has ever done. It’s out of character for him. He knows, if things were reversed, this is exactly when Andy would choose.

Actually, that’s not accurate. Andy would wait until the actual _taping_.

There is absolutely nowhere to hide in the studio during dress rehearsal but it’s impossible to process how many people are witnessing this because Seth just can’t _not_ kiss Andy right now. His hand curls around Andy’s neck and brings him in and he’s leaning down to open Andy’s mouth with his own and it’s all happening way, way too fast and people are definitely watching. But one of Andy’s hands finds his and squeezes tight and Seth feels a pulse jumping in his throat so hard he can barely breathe past it. When he feels Andy start to smile against his lips he pulls back, head whipping around on damage control, searching eyes mercifully only finding lighting techs and grips pretending not to stare, although that could just be all that he’s willing to see. He decides it’s best not to think about it until later when he might have to. Seth drags Andy around the nearest corner he can find and the next kiss happens even faster, hips flush against each other’s, Andy’s hands running through his carefully styled hair. It’s fierce and wet and hot and totally worth waiting five years for. Seth feels something tickle against his face and it registers that Andy is still wearing his Cathy wig, his entire Cathy outfit, then Andy is pulling at Seth’s lips with his teeth and Seth’s hands are sliding down the slope of Andy’s ribs and he feels five seconds away from blacking out. He pulls back and leans his forehead against Andy’s, breathing hard.

“I’m sorry.”

Andy’s hands are on his hips, keeping him close, rocking their bodies together. “I guess this outfit really does it for you, huh?” His voice is low and a little breathless, and it’s about the sexiest thing Seth has ever heard. “Maybe I should wear it more often.”

“Trust me,” Seth says, aware that time is ticking on even as his eyes fall closed, “it’s not the outfit.”

He knows Andy is smiling, can sense it even as they break apart with one final stutter of fingertips against fabric, Andy dashing away from him and towards the wardrobe department, tearing off the wig as he does so. Seth’s heart is still pounding, impossibly speeding up even more when Andy’s voice floats towards him over his shoulder.

“Then don’t wait so long next time.”


End file.
